The Left Outsides

London-based folk duo Alison Cotton (formerly of The Eighteenth Day of May and Saloon) and her husband Mark Nicholas (who was in Of Arrowe Hill, the self-styled “most haunted group in England”). They say their well-received 2018 album All That Remains evokes “chilly fields at dawn”; here’s the title track.

Leftover Salmon

Formed in 1989 in Boulder, Colorado, when Vince Herman of the Cajun/calypso/jugband outfit the Salmon Heads joined forces with three members of the progressive bluegrass Left Hand String Band. They call their superbly crafted blend of bluegrass, rock, country, and Cajun/Zydeco “Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass”, and it sounds like this.

Let's Eat Grandma

Two teenage girls (“basically, we’re witches”) from Norwich, England, getting some attention and good reviews in 2016 with a goth/folk thing that they describe as “psychedelic sludge pop”. Here’s an example, their single Eat Shiitake Mushrooms. The name is based on an old punctuation joke: a comma is the difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!”

Lez Zeppelin

Tribute band with the motto: “All Girls, All Zeppelin.” Spin magazine described them as “the most powerful all-female band in rock history”. This is their version of Whole Lotta Love.

The Like

Californian power-pop trio (later a quartet) formed as teenagers by daughters of recording industry figures including Pete Thomas, Elvis Costello’s drummer; his wife suggested their name because the girls, like, said “like” a lot. It lent itself to cutesy record titles such as I Like The Like and Like It Or Not. The Like released a couple of albums, played themselves in this 2010 episode of 90210,  and broke up in 2011, leaving us the memory of some great videos like this one for Wishing He Was Dead.

Love

Arthur Lee’s initially punkish LA group changed their name from The Grass Roots (because of the other, poppier, Grass Roots) and came up with the perfect name for a band who, in Forever Changes, made one of the great albums of the first Summer of Love in 1967. A kind of psychedelic folk-rock, embellished by acoustic guitars and Tijuana-style horns, it remains unique. If you haven’t heard it, try Alone Again Or.